it's interesting research, but there is no list of apps provided, only thing I could find it PDF of research is this:
100000+ SMS Messages Moziberg 2.4 1,000,000 – 5,000,000
McDo Philippines Golden Arches Dev. Corp. 1.4.27 100,000 – 500,000
Krispy Kreme Philippines Mobext 1.9 100,000 – 500,000
Pinoy Henyo Jayson Tamayo 4.0 1,000,000 – 5,000,000
Civil Service Reviewer Free Jayson Tamayo 1.1 50,000 – 100,000
so from those 5 with significant install base are minimum 3 targeted at Philippines market, the other two probably too, though they mention India
also note:
Within the 1,320,822 Android applications, our scan
yields 2 and 1 samples with functionalities of Lisnr and
Shopkick, respectively. These samples are either applications
that have been released by these companies themselves or
by other companies officially collaborating with Shopkick
or Lisnr. The user is thus aware of the deployed technology
and needs to start the audio analysis manually.
so conclusion is, from 1.3mil tested apps, around 230 have this functionality, around 5 have significant user base and all of these are in third world countries (PH/IN). also according research many devices have issues detect these higher frequencies and they didn't find it working in TV streams or European shops. also from those 230 in most of them they use technology of Shopkick and Lisnr where you need MANUALLY start audio analysis. it's interesting research, but let's keep it in perspective
TLDR: don't give microphone permission to apps which have no use of microphone